UK Shudders as Venomous Spider Creeps Across Britain

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There aren't many things that can bring a quiver to a Briton's
stiff upper lip, but a venomous arachnid named the "false widow
spider" seems to be giving the entire country a case of the
heebie-jeebies.

The BBC reports that an amateur soccer player named Steve Harris
has been sidelined indefinitely due to a bite from a false widow.
The Daily Mail described in lurid detail how a healthy
31-year-old man collapsed on the floor of a Toys "R" Us in
Southampton the day after being bitten 10 times on the neck by
one of the notorious crawlers.

Not to be outdone, a headline in the Daily Star trumpets, "False
widow spider on rampage in Britain." The article adds the
unlikely news that the
arachnid "can kill humans with a single bite." But exactly
how fearsome is the false widow — and is the British press making
a monster out of an ordinary garden bug? [ See
Photos of the Spookiest Spiders ]

A few facts may be in order: The false widow spider (Steatoda
nobilis) is a native of Spain's Canary Islands, and is
widely believed to have spread to Europe and the British Isles
through shipments of bananas. Its name comes from a superficial
resemblance to the black
widow spider, which has a much more venomous bite. The
largest of false widows are no more than a half inch (13
millimeters) across, and both males and females have pale marbled
markings on their abdomens that some observers have called a
"skull mark."

And while a bite from a false widow can cause pain and swelling —
and a handful of people may suffer an allergic reaction — the
venom is widely believed by experts to be less harmful than a bee
sting. "For almost everyone, the effect of
spider bite in this country is an itchy lump for a day or so
at worst," said Matthew Chatfield on his blog
Naturenet.

"So actually, there's almost no evidence of Steatoda
nobilis or any other U.K. spider causing anything more than
temporary discomfort to anyone," Chatfield noted, adding,
"Steatoda may well be the U.K.'s most dangerous spider,
but that position is only slightly more odious than being the
U.K.'s most dangerous kitten."

Stuart Hine, an entomologist at London's Natural History Museum,
also weighed in on Chatfield's Naturenet blog: "Yes, this story
makes its annual appearance, and I fully expect to cover it once
a year for the next decade," Hine wrote. "Generally speaking, the
effects of bites … are paltry, though shocking for the victim."

One thing that all parties agree on, however, is the spread of
the false widow spider throughout Great Britain, largely due to a
warming
climate. "Interestingly, we never recorded this species as an
inquiry pre-1999, and numbers have risen each year since," Hine
wrote on Naturenet.

Environmentalist Matt Shardlow of the conservation group Buglife
told the Star, "The false widow has long been prevalent
across much of the southwest because of the milder temperatures.
They come from warm countries and are usually killed off by our
cold weather. But climate change may have helped."

Despite the spread of the false widow spiders, most experts are
quick to remind people that, despite the creatures' nefarious
reputation, spiders are an important part of the natural world,
and help to control insect pest populations. "Spiders are of
great environmental importance, and are really rather beautiful
and very interesting," Hine wrote.